I Am Not Even Tired Again

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

The poem Girls Can we Educate Dads, written by James Berry, tackles the issue of misogyny and systemic oppression of women from a female perspective. While in the poem, the female character seems to be questioning her father’s views and morals, there is also a comparable impact of misogyny in the real world. Women observe, reflect upon, and change their actions based on how they are perceived by men and society. Women censor themselves in the presence of certain men for a variety of reasons throughout many cultures, and it is important to understand why this issue exists, and how it is problematic in order to work towards fixing it.

Throughout history, men and women have been viewed in utterly different spheres. Men have been, and still are, believed to be the hard working individual who is in charge of “bringing home the bacon” and supporting the household finically. On the other hand, women are expected to have little to say, the house spotless, supper on the table, the children bathed, fed, in bed, and educated, all while maintaining a flawless hairdo and makeup. These stereotypes seem a bit offensive nowadays, but if you really consider it, it has been and most likely will be this way for our entire existence.

“I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me last Christmas just before I got pretty rundown and had to come here and take it easy.”

As I developed my own sense of feminism through pop culture and literature, I detached more and more from my mother’s sexism. Because she was prone to rage outbursts and volatile tempers, I learned to escape through another medium, like books or music, so a lot of what she said didn’t stick. While I was aware that her behavior was toxic, I didn’t realize how dangerous it truly was until this

Another interesting statement I would like to bring to the surface is Alvarez writes in her book that “boys are born men but girls turn into women” (72). This made me think of the BBC YouTube clip we watched in class. Within this video a mother, father, and daughter are getting prepared for their daughters sweet fifteen. One of the first things I recognized in this film was that the father a male was speaking about and for the females when they were in the same room as them listening to what he had to say. This is a problem in itself as the male voices his and silences the women, in addition, he is speaking on a subject that he does not even fully understand, women. For arguments sake a women would never speak about a man and what it means to be one. This power dynamic within this family is troubling and shows the dominance of one gender over

Since the beginning of human civilization, societies have always held certain standards and behavioral codes that the members of the society had to follow. Even though these standards weren’t ‘written in stone’, so to speak, there was an unspoken requirement that men and women were supposed to follow them. Also, there were different codes for the different genders and ages. A female child had different codes to follow than an old wise man. Today, there are still behavioral codes that societies follow and adhere to.

As old memories flooded his mind, Andrew quickly turned off the radio, and said, “I can’t listen anymore.” Pulling to the curb, he wept as he did when he was a ten-year-old boy, wiping his eyes, he whispered, “Crying doesn’t do any good, now. I need to stop. It doesn’t help.” Collecting his thoughts, he drove home, thinking, I have too many things to finish.

In today’s world there are many ideologies that women are set to follow but that are also easy to break through. As society progresses, people have to adjust to new societal norms. The story, “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro is about an 11-year-old girl who lives in a fox-breeding farm, alongside her parents and siblings. The whole point of breeding the foxes is to be able to kill them and later skin them but the horses they own are killed in order to feed and bulk up the foxes. This is an everyday routine for the little girl, who takes pride in helping out her father with outdoor chores. She takes it as a compliment and blushes when her father introduces her as his “hired man” since it is something she prefers doing over house work. She dreads

I am the only female in the house. I grew up with two sisters, my mom and dad. I had never been concerned with making sure my boys respected women. I thought it was a given. My husband is very pro-woman. He never insist that something is woman’s job or a man’s job. He cooks, does the laundry, change diapers, etc. I seriously think the man would have carried our babies for me if he could. So where did get these gender role notions?

“Okay dad. You got it. We’re only ten minutes away, anyway. So, you’ll never guess who I ran into last week. George Hingman, remember him? That skinny kid from the project that used to stick to you like glue when we were kids? Well, he happened to see Jim and I in the mall a couple of weeks ago. George stopped us to say hi and asked me how you were. About all I said is that you were out in California now, which seemed to disappoint him a lot. It was important to him that I get word to you that he owns a construction business now and has nine guys working for him. All the stuff you taught him came in big time handy. It seems valuable to him that you are proud. Oh, and guess what else?—” She was still updating her dad with everything new that

I have continuously battled the culture of patriarchy entrenched through my background and authority figures. I had to battle my autocratic ruler mentally, verbally and — in unfortunate instances — physically. Although my animosity for my mother’s inability to walk away from my father’s dominance grew as an adult, I was enlightened by her willingness to serve others.

There are a lot of things constant in life; like education, family, and work. In all of these constants there is a constant of there own; gender stereotypes. These standard based on gender that can be seen as far back as shakespeare and is clearly noted in Shakespeare's Macbeth, which emphasize on how males should act. The ideas of how women should act and presented in Judy Brady’s “Why I Want a Wife”, From the time of Shakespeare of the late 1900s you can see a distinct way men and women are portrayed. Even though women can now hold a job and can vote there was a time where the stereotype was that women couldn't do any of these. As times change so do the stereotypes of each gender.

Throughout many decades women have been struggling to be equal to men, both at home and in the work place. Women have come a long way and are certainly fighting to gain that equality, but gender roles are very important in our society. They have become important in life from birth, and society continues to push these gender roles. The treatment of the male gender is very different from that of the female, and this issue has become very important to me, as a woman. As children we learn and adapt to specific gender roles, and as we grow they become more evident and more important to our role in a society. There is a lot of discrimination against the female gender. Carol Gilligan argued that

I remember when my parents used to preach that, I was not allowed to be involved in whatever my male peers were up to. That’s not lady like. Ladies don’t dress like that. Stop being fast accentually calling me a whore, hoe, or slut. Yes, I’m sure that on the daily we’ve all heard those phrases as a young woman growing up. I know for me hearing that used to annoy the hell out of me, noticing that boys could and will be able to continue to do whatever their little heart’s desire and not be punished for those same actions. But why was I pressured by parents/elders and society to preserve myself, while boys could entertain themselves in whatever they like? Is there a double standard between the genders? Who really know for sure.